My team maintains and supports Cisco IT’s internal implementation of the Cisco WebEx Social collaboration platform. Cisco employees use WebEx Social for internal collaboration and knowledge sharing in online communities, and as a central repository for documents, videos, and other information resources. Read More »

In the midst of tremendous disruption, it is impossible to tell where the global media industry is ultimately heading. But a recent analysis from the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) explores four possible future scenarios for the media industry. While they do not “predict” the future, the scenarios help build our understanding of possible outcomes — and how various industry players could be affected.

The Shape of Things To Come: Four Scenarios

We explored the ways certain industry developments could swing future outcomes. Combining these drivers into logical groupings (consumer behavior, regulatory requirements, technology, and macroeconomic conditions), we were able to define the following four scenarios, as shown in Figure 1. These scenarios are differentiated by consumer demand, industry structure, and content supply:

Survival of the Fittest — low demand, fragmented industry, and high content supply

Golden Age of Content — high demand, consolidated industry, and controlled content supply

Wonderland — high demand, fragmented industry, and high content supply

Obviously, each of the scenarios will have different winners and losers. The financial impact and the implications for players across the industry value chain will substantially change by scenario. And in each scenario, distributors and infrastructure providers will need to consider different types of investments. Consequently, each type of player will need to adapt its competitive responses to the future scenario taking shape.

Figure 1. Four Future Scenarios Are Based on Various Groupings of Industry Drivers.

Source: Cisco IBSG, 2013

Following are examples of how two future scenarios could play out: Read More »

What might interest you to spend time at a website such as Cisco’s Security Intelligence Operations (SIO) web portal? You might be compelled because of the relevant security content made available to you that matters most. Directly linked to that experiential perspective are the behind-the-scenes efforts that are related to the publishing and presentation of security content, which is a dynamic undertaking because the Internet never sleeps and the next cyber-security event looms just around the corner. Security practitioners, and non-practitioners alike, reap the benefits from the security content that the Cisco SIO content managers orchestrate for the SIO portal. This article provides insights into how they contribute to the publishing of trusted, consistent, and predictable content for you, our customers, on a daily basis throughout the year.

Managing security content is significant in several respects to SIO, where there is an array of options to apply and reap maximum benefit from content within the key security tenets: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. At its core, SIO’s security content transcends diverse communications mediums and is woven into the methods related to how we consume and interact with it. Cisco has a team of dedicated content managers chartered with meeting the demands and challenges of delivering timely, credible, and actionable security intelligence through the editorial and web publishing services that they provide within SIO.

The Security Content Manager needs to be mindful of the content providers and publishing platforms covered while aggregating and distilling security information for use by a global audience over multiple communications channels within the context of their use cases. This approach is integral to facilitating the degree and impact of the security content’s effectiveness and utility.

Success can come in many forms. Three very different success stories. Listen to the replay for details.

This week, Partner Velocity (Cisco’s program to help partners’ marketing efforts) held a one-hour webcast to help you get started with social media.

It’s a topic near and dear to my heart, so I led the webcast and provided some guidance for beginners and more advanced practitioners, tips, and tricks to help launch a social media presence.

If you couldn’t make it, don’t worry as there’s a replay available. Be sure to listen to this replay and attend the next two webinars in the series: you’ll be entered to win a US$2500 marketing consultation.

Head to the Partner Velocity site for details, and to register for the next two sessions (Social Media for Events and Creating an Integrated Campaign).

Here’s a quick recap of the topics covered in this week’s session “Building a Successful Social Media Program”:

How to develop a listening strategy

How to define and segment your audience (and create content for each persona)

Tips and tricks for engaging with your audience

Ways to design a measurement/metrics plan

And finally, some key takeaways and next steps

Keep reading for my seven questions to ask before launching your own social media program.

It’s a gratifying read for our web team, of course, but what I like most about the post is that it recognizes that the most important aspects of the design aren’t the obvious visual aspects. Instead, they’re the less glamorous challenges like making it easier to navigate across the site, and simplifying the content in our product areas.

Image: The new cross-site "mega menus," available from most every page.

A big web site is a little like a major city: There are millions of “addresses”. There are the brilliant showcase districts and signature buildings. But the bulk of a working city is the utilitarian areas and boulevards where people spend most of their working and living time. And of course there are grungy areas that need a little repair or reinvention.

Cisco.com has all of these, but in our recent design updates we’ve tried hard to make the working areas work harder than ever, and added new shine to the showcase districts where we orient newcomers or explain major concepts like Collaboration or Borderless Networks.

As with a city, the improvement work is never done. We (literally) work night and day to make big and small improvements to the site to make it work better for you.

If you ever have feedback, please drop us on a note from the footer of every page.

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